GURUGRAM: The health department has set up a district-level medical board to probe medical negligence complaints against private and government doctors and hospitals. This follows the June 4 order by the state to set up a probe panel.

Under the new system, district medical boards for negligence would comprise the district civil surgeon as chairperson and principal medical officer or medical superintendent of the district hospital as member-secretary.

So far, such complaints were referred to the deputy civil surgeon and any concerned specialist. This often lead to patients and their kin not being satisfied with the outcome, and allegations of doctors shielding members of their fraternity. With the establishment of the panel, the responsibility of looking into complaints of medical negligence falls on the civil surgeon, who is in charge of the whole department. By shifting the charge to the top-most level, the state government hopes for more transparency in such probes. This would lead to better accountability and responsiveness from government as well as private doctors, the government said.

Other members in the committee would include two specialists in the domain related to the complaint, either both from the government sector, or one from government and one from the private sector.

"In case a specialist of the branch of medicine to which the complaint pertains is not available, the civil surgeon can call a specialist from another district, and one member of Indian Medical Association at district level," Gurgaon chief medi c al officer Dr BK Rajora told TOI.